


Toska

by StarlightOnInk, Todd (Vaecordia)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bolshevik Revolution, Drama, Emigre, France - Freeform, Historical drama, History, Human AU, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Paris - Freeform, Russian Revolution, Russian emigre community in Paris, White Russian Emigre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 17:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11972544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightOnInk/pseuds/StarlightOnInk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaecordia/pseuds/Todd
Summary: As the sun sets on Imperial Russia, freelance journalist Alfred F. Jones seeks to interview the growing diaspora of Russian emigres in Paris. There, he meets Ivan Braginsky, who shows him the full spectrum of revelry and mourning, persisting and succumbing. Both far from all they knew, one knows he has a home to return to whenever he chooses, while the other can never go back. Amidst this concentration of pain and stubborn endurance, even Alfred's optimism is tested. He and Ivan seek in each other the precarious signs of comfort in a world where the only constant is change. The Russian emigre community in Paris, Alfred's dear emigre, teaches him and the world how to carry on. RusAme historical human AU.





	Toska

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost I would like to offer my most profound thanks to redwingto, who took time from her day to meticulously look this over and provide corrections and invaluable suggestions. and MapleTreeway who also took time from her day to listen to my rambling, read excerpts, and provide the enlightening piece of advice for how to direct this. This is a follow-up on a short post I made on tumblr of journalist!Alfred meeting and interviewing emigre!Ivan who had to flee Russia to Paris due to the Bolshevik Revolution. This offers Alfred a chance at exploring the nuanced hardships faced by the battered yet enduring Russian he met in Paris. This was in part inspired by the songs "Land of Yesterday" and "Stay, I Pray You" from the Anastasia Broadway track. Enjoy the historical facts!

**Toska**

Alfred had been told he was an idiot a few times throughout his life. The first during an uncle’s drunken rant on how it was a shame he was blind so he’d never be let into the army, and he was an idiot so he’d never amount to anything great, _such a shame, little brother_.

Alfred wasn’t blind, but for any dreams of flight- dreams of the Air Force- he might as well have been.

Alfred wasn’t blind, but he did not need sight or even sound to take in the stories of the world around him, to record and share the goings on of his dear country. And as Alfred delved further into his career in journalism, he was faced with the eternal truth that there were goings on beyond his dear country, in the dear country of others he had never even met, who knew nothing of idiotic, blind Alfred bent over his notes.

He had been called an idiot for understanding that the land he lived in was a land of differences, for understanding that to get the full truth he needed to hear from everyone, record the full spectrum of emotions from the full spectrum of his diverse land. Less thoughtful onlookers had said many unkind things when they witnessed Alfred’s conversation, but the sting of indignation he felt was not for himself but for the suddenly silent individual he was interviewing.

His boss, Arthur, had not called him an idiot for the interviews he conducted. He called him an idiot as he was marching up the docks to head for France.

This occasion left no ache in Alfred’s chest, only a smile across his face. “I’m getting you this story!” he vowed Arthur over the footsteps and shouts of fellow passengers.

“You’re a fool!” Arthur hollered, thick eyebrows knitted in frustration. Alfred’s continued serenity did nothing to soothe him. “Alfred, stay here. You can work from here!”

Alfred merely shook his head, still smiling. “No cutting corners with sharing the lives of others, boss. You taught me that.”

“Since when do you listen? You never listen!”

Alfred tipped his hat. “Won’t be starting now!” He turned, Arthur’s insults and cries of protest bouncing right off his stubborn back as he marched off, luggage in tow. The moist salty air rustled Alfred’s golden hair, danced beside him as he made the short walk to the other side of the world.

Dusk was falling on the world, the winter of life casting a cold breeze on all their pretenses and pageantry, impending snowfalls muffling the rattling of bullets and the death throes of empires. So it was for soldiers, for civilians, for nations alike. The globe itself was being carved anew to fit a map shredded and reassembled beyond recognition. It left people displaced, it solidified existing ties, and it birthed generations born to the lands of nowhere.

The great bear of the Russian Empire’s breathing had faltered, slowed, halted. And those who belonged to it threw themselves to the direction of wind and fate. But what thoughts coursed through the veins of a life turned upside down? Whole new diasporas were appearing of varying social classes, each with the common goal.

Escape.

It was a time of turbulence and change, and Alfred wanted to be the one to tell their story to the world. And so he sought his sources in Paris, with its newfound population of emigres who fled with varying supplies from their entire fortune of jewels to a single change of clothes.

This journey by sea was not something the people he had talked to had endured. A small blessing, thought Alfred, as he tried to block out the sounds of nausea and expelled food around him. To him, nothing quite represented freedom the same way the sea did. Except perhaps an ocean of a different kind, the ever-present looming inky black and speckled fiery dust and _silence_ and _eternity_.

But he was grounded, tethered to a world writhing in its own mistakes, a man with his own mortality and pursuit of discovery.

Revelation could be found in Paris.

0o0o0

Revelation could be found in Paris, along with words both foreign and familiar, with the same trepidation Alfred had seen worn by separated sweethearts and glances of a whole new worry unique to France- just as a Frenchman might find the worrisome looks Americans cast each other to be unique to America. And somewhere in this city of love and lights and culture, there would be looks unique to Russia.

At once Alfred was bombarded by the _Frenchness_ of the city. Perhaps because he had spent his whole life in America, and so had grown accustomed to the way his home played upon his senses; but it seemed now to Alfred that the very air, the scents, the sights, the sounds, the feel of the ground beneath his feet reverberated with a kind of energy that he knew could be found nowhere else, just as the energy of his America could not be detected here.

Strange, though, how the melancholic breeze that haunted him at the beginning of his journey at a harbor in New York seemed to have followed him here.

Alfred’s wide-eyed staring stood out in the sea of disconcertion that was wartime Paris, but no one called him out on it, for which he was too enamored to be grateful. At his side hung bags of personal belongings: several changes of clothes, money, toiletries, several pens, and a whole notebook of paper. Arthur, for all his protesting, had made sure Alfred was well informed of the area and knew where to go to have safe lodgings. He had what he simply called “a contact” in Paris who would take care of Alfred and get him a place to stay while he was interviewing.

Alfred could see why Arthur might not find Francis agreeable. Alfred himself did not share the sentiment; he found the Frenchman to be sociable, charismatic, charming, and expressive. And those were the traits that likely drove Arthur to only ever grumble his name and roll his eyes when discussing Francis. Fortunately, Arthur was not present, and Alfred was free to let Francis how grateful he was for all the help.

“All you need can be found in a holy trinity, so to speak,” Francis said in an accented voice that was like a purr as he guided Alfred through France. “Rue Daru, rue Pierre-le-Grand, and rue de la Neva.”

“When will we get there?” Alfred asked excitedly.

Francis smiled. “You will know immediately.”

At first, Alfred did not understand. “I’m new to the city,” he protested, but he was met with a knowing silence as they traveled on.

And sure enough, like a ripple across a glassy lake, permanently altering the surface, Alfred noticed a shift. Signs bore the Cyrillic alphabet, decorations were noticeably different from the Parisian fads found elsewhere, and the voices on the street were definitely not speaking French. Even the soft lilt of songs sounded more earthy as well. Many buildings were made of the same stone that held up most of Paris, and some bore identical architectural stylings. But not all, and for those that were different, their numbers were significant and so were their deviations. Though of course much of Paris, including this Russian oasis, had long since been built, new buildings cropped up with the influx of white emigres. Along the streets stood buildings of wood, for the true practical Russian knew wood insulated better in the harsh winter, and allowed them to show off their abode’s _nalichniki_ , illustrious, elaborate, intricate wood frames of unparalleled craftsmanship.

Some emigres had grown up with the long-taught deceased Peter the Great’s old devotion to French customs; they were able to style themselves similarly to native Parisians. But they were in stark contrast to the majority of refugees who went through life atop the swelling crest of Slavophilia that had spread through the old empire, and so their stylings were distinctly Russian. While native Parisians flung open their windows with complete abandon during times of even slight warmth, the Russians stubbornly opened only a top panel. Parisian food looked heavy in small amounts; the foods eaten by Russians here were relatively light in shockingly vast amounts, entire tables filled to their very edges with food. Alfred had only seen a few Frenchmen cross themselves as he traveled through the city; the Russians crossed themselves often, and from right to left, and in somewhat of a subdued manner, as if treating it as a private affair. And again, though French influence had spread to Russia as it had to all of Europe, these displaced Russians seemed to only wish to showcase their native customs; while the French wardrobe was form-fitting and short, the Russians were unafraid to dress in garments that were long and loose.

And the bells. Church bells ringing almost constantly, their gilded chimes as present as air- and somehow just as necessary.

“Welcome to the old Russia’s new cultural heart,” Francis said solemnly, piercing Alfred’s stunned silence.

Alfred spent the rest of the day dissolving his shock in experiences. After accepting help from Francis in renting a room to stay in just nearby, Alfred took in as much of this corner of the world as he could. The inhabitants of this diaspora spoke primarily in Russia, almost always seeming huddled together in a protective manner, as if massing together could help preserve their fraying stability. Teachers taught in Russian. Russian instruments were played. Gentlemen scoffed at Russian newspapers in Russian; Alfred caught sight of two men eyeing an article- based on the picture- about the growing socialist movements with unparalleled loathing. The hate in their eyes was such a force as Alfred would not have imagined possible, and always all displays of anger bore something else, something somehow worse.

Alfred would not have imagined he could walk through France and cross the border into Russia, but to his American self, it seemed he had. Hesitantly, Alfred sought out anyone who could speak English, found a fair number. Some were willing to talk, some only leveled hardened eyes at him, gave a shake of the head, or else ignored his questions completely and insisted he record their hatred for the Reds. It was a community united by pain. And it was his pain to absorb it, give words to it.

“Daytime is not for being candid.”

Alfred paused in his tired march down the street, wheeling round. The man before him was of thick build and even greater height, with features as unique as the peculiar passionate melancholy that distinguished this area of the city. Though his violet eyes were dancing, they too displayed the unmistakable mark of mourning all other residents carried.

“What do you mean?” Alfred asked, readying his papers.

The man’s sad smile grew as he shook his head. “At night is when you can see more of how we endure,” he said. In two loping strides he was beside Alfred, pointing down the street. “Just that way right across the bridge is a club. I will help with your little interview there this evening.”

“O-oh! Ah…thank you,” Alfred said hesitantly. He extended his hand. “Alfred F. Jones,” he introduced.

The man clasped Alfred’s tan hand in his own large pale one. “Ivan Braginsky.”

 _Ivan_ , Alfred thought to himself as he worked to memorize his face, the face of the one who would be his best source.

0o0o0

The chatter of Russian Alfred had heard throughout the streets increased tenfold in the nightclub, mingling with the sounds of glasses clinking together and the smoke of cigars. Alfred wanted to say the mood seemed to have improved, but the pained looks he had seen earlier were not easy to forget, and the ache they represented was not easy to shake.

Ivan, however, was easy to spot, standing impossibly large amidst the patrons with that same forced smile he had worn earlier.

“I like to wear this to forget I am now just a doorman,” he said as soon as Alfred stepped up to him, waving to his own fine-looking suit.

“What did you do in Russia?” Alfred asked, settling down in a seat across from Ivan as the other sat as well.

Ivan stared. “What every other member of the nobility did,” he said shortly. “Served my home.”

Alfred paused in his writing. There was something darker in Ivan’s eyes, something more open. The man’s full face seemed tensed now, with thin lips pursed in a hard line. But always with that smile.

“I am sure you can guess most of our stories,” Ivan said firmly, leaning casually in his seat, one long leg draped over the other. “I saw you flitting around all afternoon with your notes. So tell me, what is my story?”

Some faraway part of Alfred felt he should address Ivan watching him for so long. Alfred licked his lips. “You had to leave-”

“No,” Ivan cut him off. “I was forced to. I did not have to; the choice was taken from me.” He took a long swig from his drink. “You must call it what it is.”

Alfred paused. Nodded. “You had no choice but to leave because of the revolution. Because the Reds-”

“Yes. The Reds.” Something like approval flashed through Ivan’s features. On stage, the music shifted from a calm, nondescript tune to something faster. The chatter swelled. “And then?”

“So, you fled and came to Paris,” Alfred said lamely, shifting in his seat under Ivan’s scrutinizing eyes.

“Precisely. There, another new piece for your newspaper.” The plasticity of Ivan’s smile increased.

“I’m sorry,” Alfred muttered, head bowed. “I… What is it like? Going from a member of the nobility to doing everyday work like this?”

“I did everyday work for my home,” Ivan said with a shrug, averting his gaze to watch the stage. “And I then did what I needed to survive.” He dragged his eyes back to land on Alfred. “The Reds would have killed me, you see. Myself and my sisters. So, where is the choice?”

“There was none,” Alfred finished firmly, continuing to write. “And so, you all just carry on with Russia here? Make your own Russia in Paris?”

“Until we can go home.” The smile had shrunk somewhat now. “But do you know specifically _how_ we carry on with Russia as best we can here?”

Alfred shook his head.

Ivan stared at him, Alfred holding his gaze all the while. Almost imperceptibly, Ivan gave a nod. “Then watch carefully tonight, so you understand.” It was he who broke their improvised staring contest, looking on to the fellow patrons filling the establishment.

At the time, Alfred was not sure if this had been a coordinated effort, but he would later find out what happened tonight was no rare occurrence. Together, everyone in the club, patrons, servers, musicians alike, seemed to experience a communion through artistic expression. And the heartbeat of far-flung expatriates accelerated with the tempo of the music. Everyone was up, dancing, singing, smiling, crying, toasting, hugging, kissing.

The dances were particularly captivating, so many men- once officers, princes, diplomats, generals, and nobility like Ivan- grouped together and danced, taking turns in a circle of flashing cufflinks and gold buttons and watches, strong legs kicking, backs arching, arms waving. Alfred could hear the claps and chants of “ _Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!_ ” in his own chest, the stomping of the dancers’ boots matching the beating of his heart. Drinks were tossed, ladies’ skirts fluttered as they twirled together or with their men, their melodious voices singing of distant birch meadows and emerald rivers. Some bore jewelery of fine amber; others had sold all their finery. But they carried a glory with them in their moves- including Ivan, who participated in all of it, always being sure to stay in sight of Alfred’s transfixed gaze. Alfred would not have believed this was the same community he had watched rage and whisper and flit and stare with such emptiness earlier today. Yet there was a kind of defiance in their dance, in their songs of their distant home, even as many toasts were said in but a hushed voice, as if not daring to ask too loudly for their safe passage back to Russia for fear the loudness would offend God; they flitted through dances as they had flitted down the streets with suspicious footsteps and glances over their shoulders; and staring at Ivan, Alfred could tell everything he had witnessed earlier today was still present in the celebrations this evening.

When some of the partying had quieted, Ivan sat on the edge of the stage, deep voice sounding through the club in a mournful tune of love and land, courtship and country, forever and fragmented. Several other voices joined his own, all very different yet somehow a perfect melody.

_Gori, gori, moya zvezda,_

_Zvezda lyubvi, privetnaya!_

_Ty u menya odna zavetnaya,_

_Drugoy ne budet nikogda._

_Soydyot li noch na zemlyu yasnaya,_

_Zvyozd mnogo bleshchet v nebesakh,_

_No ty odna, moya prekrasnaya,_

_Gorish v otradnykh mne luchakh._

_Zvezda nadezhdy blagodatnaya,_

_Zvezda lyubvi volshebnykh dney,_

_Ty budesh vechno nezakatnaya_

_V dushe toskuyushchey moyey._

_Tvoikh luchey nebesnoy siloyu_

_Vsya zhizn moya ozarena._

_Umru li ya, ty nad mogiloyu_

_Gori, siyay, moya zvezda!_

 

Perhaps for Alfred’s benefit, Ivan shifted to English, joined by a few, the song repeated in multiple languages now.

 

_Shine, shine, my star,_

_Shine, affable star!_

_You are my only cherished one,_

_Another there will never be._

_If a clear night comes down upon the earth_

_Many stars shine in the skies,_

_But you alone, my gorgeous one,_

_Shine in pleasant beams to me_

_O blessed star of hope,_

_The star of love of magic days,_

_You will be eternally unwithering_

_In my longing soul._

_By the heavenly strength of your beams_

_My whole life is illuminated_

_And if I die, over my grave_

_Shine, shine on, my star!_

 

Alfred watched on awed, by the swell of conflicting emotions present in this small space. Ivan was not meeting his eyes as he sat; violet eyes were gazing off somewhere else, outside the city, far away from either of them.

Gradually, the flames of music cooled to embers, flickered, dissipated out of existence. A rumbling murmur swelled through the crowd of expats as everyone raised their glasses, Alfred toasting right along with them.

“ _Za rodinu_!” To the Motherland.

0o0o0

When Ivan returned to where Alfred was sitting, he seemed more relaxed than before. Some of the tension seemed to have been lifted from his broad shoulders. Without hesitating, Alfred asked, “Does this help you?”

Silently, Ivan nodded. This time it was with some hesitation that Alfred made a small note.

“Do you want to talk elsewhere?” Ivan proposed softly. It was a gentle voice for so big a man. Gentle for the lifetime he had lived.

They agreed to depart for the night, setting themselves up in Ivan’s flat; it was a modest but cozy abode, with many windows that, during the day, would provide ample natural lighting. As Alfred set himself up at a worn yet handsome wood table, Ivan shuffled around lighting lamps. The glow of the flames bathed his pale visage in a film of gold, turning lavender eyes mauve.

Job done, Ivan settled himself down across from Alfred with a tired sigh. In this intimate, informal setting, his finery looked almost comically out-of-place. Except Alfred knew now a quarter of what it meant to still wear such regalia.

“Has today been enlightening for you, little journalist?” Ivan asked in his soft, silken voice, tone making it always difficult to tell if he was belittling Alfred or not.

“It has. And I’d like to learn more.”

“Why?”

The question gave Alfred pause. Why? Normally he was the one asking such things, seeking, wanting, needing to know the nuanced reasons that set the gears of history in motion, ever mindful of the access to information so many were granted, ready to take advantage of that and spread every bit of information there was to learn. But now it was Ivan conducting an interview of his own, this massive Russian presence he had met but hours ago, who introduced himself into Alfred’s life with an authority that came naturally to him. There was something to that, Alfred thought, something to carrying your home not only on your back but in your heart.

“Don’t you want me to?”

Ivan leaned back ever so slightly in his seat, one long leg draped over the other. “Do any of you really care?’

“Yes.” Of that, Alfred bore not an ounce of doubt. At least, not concerning himself. He knew what it meant to get a full story, and knew there was always something more to get that complete picture.

Ivan shook his head. “No. No one has ever cared before. They will not care now. They _do not_ care now.”

“Yes, they do, and they will even more!” Alfred had not meant to jump to his feet or raise his voice, but there he stood with shoulders rising and falling emphatically.

Ivan stared unblinkingly at Alfred, face not betraying whatever he might have felt at Alfred’s outburst. Slowly, his eyes traveled from Alfred’s stiff frame to rest on his notes. Without seeming to realize it, his hand drifted to the thick scarf he wore, a pale garment that had been absent from his shoulders during the day; from behind it, he untucked a thin gold cross, let his fingertips brush the metal. “Sit down.” So soft was his voice, Alfred thought perhaps it was the murmur of the wind outside. “Please.”

Alfred sat, but on the edge of his seat, leaning across the round, wooden no-man’s-land between himself and Ivan, landmasses from afar dragged to meet at this impenetrable void. “Why are you so doubtful anyone will care?”

“You idealistic American,” Ivan sighed. “You think because you write something that people will read it? You think because they read it, they will feel something? If they feel something, they will act upon it?” While Alfred leaned forward, Ivan leaned back, a dismissive, uncaring posture, dominant despite the retreat. “No one has cared about Russia beyond the context of benefiting themselves. No one will care now unless it is to complain what an inconvenience this all has been for the world.” Something shimmered traitorously in Ivan’s eyes, but he kept his expression determinedly stony.

“That’s not true, and you can’t think like that,” Alfred shot back, palms flat against the tabletop. “If you’re dismissive from the beginning, nothing can get through, nothing has a chance. But there _are_ so many chances for you to be proven wrong. That’s why I’m writing. Because people do care and will care. My writing is supposed to help provide exposure. I can’t be everywhere at once physically, but I can make everyone’s hearts reach across the world.”

“To what end?”

“To the end of…learning! Changing. Caring.” Alfred sat back, running a hand tiredly through his hair. How to make Ivan see? Perhaps… Perhaps he himself needed to see something. But what?

Once more, Ivan was not meeting his gaze, eyes trained instead on the flickering of a candle whose light cut deep shadowy gashes across his face, the only thing that could conceal or undermine the dark circles under his eyes.

“You are blindly hopeful,” Ivan said, still not making eye contact. “Believing in a hollow cause. But…” Finally, _finally_ amethyst met sapphire. “You believe in it. And… I will have to believe in it too, then, for my holy motherland.”

A sharp breath escaped passed Alfred’s dried lips. “Thank you,” he breathed. “I-”

Ivan placed a firm hand atop his notes, cutting him off. “It is important you call it what it is.” His darkened eyes were wide, the closest thing to imploring Alfred had seen all day and night. Without a heartbeat of hesitation, Alfred nodded firmly. Only then did Ivan uncover his notes and let Alfred get set up to write.

“We talked earlier of how we made this corner of the city Russia for ourselves,” Ivan began, once more lounging in his seat. “How we can still open our windows and hear the call of familiar languages, read the paper in our alphabet. Smell the enticing scents of candied sweets and fresh bread, visit one another to serve and be served _zakuski_. Our names sound similar, follow the same patterns.” A soft featherlight smile played across Ivan’s lips, one of abundant fondness and unshakable love. “Fires crackle in hearts, incense wafts around our prayers drifting up to heaven beneath the tricross. I mention Stravinsky’s _Rite of Spring_ and people say ‘You mean the _Riot of Spring_.’ The snow falls here too, it crunches underfoot with the same crisp sound. We still take off our shoes at the door to avoid tracking it in. The cold wind still stings bare flesh, the sun still soothes our chilled bones. But…”

For an eternal instant, a roaring silence deafened Alfred.

“This feeling,” Ivan said slowly with his mysterious smile and sunset eyes. “This aura in our exiled corner of the world that feels so different from the rest of Paris, that permeates everyone who comes here… It certainly is not France, but it is not Russia either. I have felt the presence of my home, and it is not here, despite all our efforts. I hear the Seine, but it is not my Neva.”

The smiling face stilled but the smile did not remain. “I’ll never see it again,” Ivan murmured, and with a pang Alfred realized he was witnessing something far too intimate, far too penetrating of the human soul: the dawning realization of a man far from home that he would never set foot in his Motherland again. It was the kind of revelation that stripped a man down to his very essence, beyond thought of vulnerability and protection, for there simply only was the soul and the sinking truth of a longing with nothing to long for because that precious intangible treasure was his no more. Alfred wanted to look away, wanted to save himself from the memory of this émigré’s suffocation in a reality he chased with revelry and mourning of unparalleled ferocity. But his duty was to witness, to put words to Ivan’s story, not just to hear him but to see his futile homesickness, carry that personal burden with him, to no one’s benefit, not even Ivan’s. Lost. Ivan was lost and had lost, and was left longing with nothing to long for…

And as sudden as that realization, so too was Alfred’s awareness that he himself had been changed by what he had witnessed. Like a swift and impersonal step into untouched snow, Alfred was different now, permanently so, and like an imprint in a field of snow there was no way to mask it without changing the entirety. No soothing swipe, no matter how gentle, could erase what had been done without reshaping the landscape of the soul further still.

And so violet eyes searched into the distance, across horizons and nations, reaching beyond comfort of life and acceptance, desperate for a final clasp at the soil he had tread as his own. It was a pain too deeply rooted to ever address, the ache of seeing such futile longing that soared down streets, toppled walls, speared across rivers to glide into the welcoming arms of northern winds and weave among swaying, laughing birches. To hear the call of gulls and feel the rattle of carriage wheels under boots on cobbled streets. To admire ornate wood trim among windows swinging open to welcome the sound of a returning loved one.

To know it all exists.

To have had it.

To be robbed of it.

Alfred did not speak, merely surrendered himself to this raw baring of the soul entrusted upon him. All the while, Ivan himself seemed to be drained of that earlier essence, that sustaining bravado that strengthened his movement and voice, let him create artful tributes with his fellow exiles. All that remained was what he was, human beyond country, beyond home.

Silence filled the distance between them, as constant as that sense of absence penetrating them both. Alfred bit his lip as his nerves tensed and tensed with every shift in Ivan’s posture, the deflating spirit, the hunched shoulders, bowing head. The delicate gold cross glinted in the firelight, and for the moment, Alfred was sure Ivan was bowing in prayer. But who or what he was praying for, Alfred could only guess from a growing list.

In light of so much turmoil around the world, of the accounts of brutality and loss Alfred had never wanted to imagine possible, it had become hard for him to imagine anyone was listening, anyone cared. And so he had trudged on through his work with the grim acceptance of a loss of faith, the knowledge that appealing to no one but one’s self would bring change. To be sure, Alfred was not without hope, quite the opposite. He simply believed first and foremost that hope should come from within.

But in this instance of mournful communion with a displaced soul, Alfred too let his gaze drop and his hardened heart be humbled. He too prayed, for the first time in a very long time.

He did not look up immediately after sensing Ivan straighten, despite his persisting doubts wanting to finish his prayer in earnest. When at last he saw Ivan he knew the man before him had arisen as someone else, a grief woven into his soul that comes with being fully faced with a crushing truth. Alfred’s hold on his pen was steady as he set the tip to his paper and wrote, the scratching of the pen giving sound to the nails raking across the homesick and the weary.

Though time brought with it more darkened letters scrawled across the canvas of Alfred’s note paper, he felt as if he were an artist, sketching out the image of the Russian émigré, fleeing from all he knew, casting away all he loved. He was drawing for prying eyes a picture of the homeless, the wandering, the longing with nothing to long for, for that object of love and desire was his no more.

The dichotomy struck Alfred, so startlingly that he dragged his gaze from his writing back to the man seated before him. He seemed older in his mourning, as if when the truth caught up to him so did the lifetime he had lived in just a few years of turbulence.

Could others really see this? Ought others read it?

It was no easy thing to be this exposed to the world. To endure it was beyond man’s capacity to do so willingly. Life simply placed upon their shoulders a task, yet another fact of themselves to carry as a truth. Ivan had not volunteered to be so robbed, but he could demand privacy amidst his requiem.

As if sensing Alfred’s uncertainty, Ivan’s eyes locked onto his own, trapping him here, in Paris, a lifetime away from home just as he was. “What else?” The northern winds weaving between beloved swaying, laughing birches carried his voice from Russia to Alfred’s instance of Paris, bringing a realization of such surety that it startled Alfred.

It was endurance.

“I-”

Cowing down would have been easy. Succumbing to his own secondhand despair would have been quick. Relenting carried the promise of ease. But if Ivan knew the importance of shouldering on, of carrying his loss not as a cross but as a crutch, then Alfred could too. They all had, the emigres who danced and sang with Ivan, reminiscing and berating. They knew this injury was a weapon, that their wounds would heal over into something tougher.

And Alfred would make sure their strength was honored.

Alfred nodded, producing a separate sheet of questions he had prepared ahead of time. Into the night he and Ivan spoke, Alfred asking every question on his list and twice as many not. The interview turned into a dialogue that turned into a conversation between two souls with something to offer the other, with ways to tear open wounds and stitch them up good as new, but always with a trace of what had been done.

Alfred used up all of his notepaper, readily resorting to napkins and all other manner of improvised writing surfaces. Ivan displayed patience in his nervous scrambling, the same patience that brought him to Paris. The look he gave Alfred chipped bit by bit at his nerves, leaving Alfred feeling both frayed and invigorated, as if along with his sense of calm, Ivan was also ridding him of irrevocable burdens weighing upon him. Alfred felt hypersensitive, almost jittery, as he worked to record every last crucial detail.

When he was done, he simply stared with a grim determination down at his notes. “Thank you, Ivan,” he said softly, solemnly.

Ivan nodded. “My pleasure.”

Alfred did not know what to make of that. For all he had learned in just this evening, some mysteries would perhaps forever evade him. But Ivan’s smile was genuine, proof that a man could smile again after enduring a lifetime condensed into several long months, a few short years. And his hold on Alfred’s hand was firm as he shook it, proof the body could produce its own strength even after the heart was battered and weary.

They stared at each other, two strangers far from all they knew: one with a land to call his own, the other a refugee from his home. “What will you do?” Alfred asked, pen and paper packed away. This answer needed no recording.

Ivan pursed his lips, eyes like amethyst steel. “Continue,” was all he said.

Alfred nodded. Continue. All Ivan knew to do to live.

“I… Keep in touch. Please,” Alfred said in a harried hush.

Thin lips parted slightly in mild surprise, but Ivan nodded in earnest without needing to think. “Will you send me what you wrote?” he asked thickly, pointing a long steady finger to Alfred’s bag of equipment.

Alfred tried for a smile and was surprised when he saw a slight flicker in Ivan’s eyes to realize he must have succeeded. “Of course,” he promised. “As long as I keep getting letters.”

It was Ivan’s turn to nod. “Deal.”

0o0o0

Alfred met with Ivan a few more times during his stay, each meeting leaving an eternal mark upon his soul. He discovered, betraying his revelation with barely more than widening eyes, that what he, Alfred, needed to understand was that he was fighting an uphill battle; he had entered Ivan’s life when his spirit had been battered and tested and betrayed from all around, that after such a siege upon the heart, it was only natural for the stronghold’s defender to amass barricades. Alfred was an ally trying to wend between the defenses and find that persisting lifeforce amidst the carnage.

Alfred learned more about Ivan’s life back home, his true home. He learned, in what Ivan called a cruel twist of fate, that his favorite color had been red. “Beautiful,” Ivan said softly. “The word for red also meant beautiful.” Now it was the yellow of the sunflowers his older sister would pick in Ukraine, always turning to face the sun and drink in its warmth. When Alfred asked about meeting his sisters, Ivan clammed up, shaking his head solemnly, and saying only, “I want to keep them out of this.”

It was not until Alfred was back in America that he would realize why Ivan had not wanted their involvement.

But his time in Paris, in Russia outside of Russia, would reveal to him just what exactly being alive meant, the responsibility it came with, the emotions one would have to endure and embrace. He marveled at Ivan’s strength; he himself felt drained by the end of most days after interviewing the emigres, yet here Ivan was, having lived through the real thing, carrying its weight on his shoulders every day.

Ivan taught Alfred some rudimentary Russian, treating Alfred to his breathy yet rumbling laughter when Alfred botched a word. He was met with more success when reading the signs printed in Cyrillic speckled through their section of the city. Ivan couldn’t fully make out Alfred’s smile when he tried on the American’s glasses, the world around him horribly distorted through the lenses, but he knew it was there, could see the glint of his flashing white teeth and hear his hearty laughter and appreciative whistle. Alfred got to run a thumb over the fabric of Ivan’s omnipresent scarf, smelling the garment and taking in the scent of chamomile and birch, of tea and freshly baked bread, snowfall and earth.

Alfred told Ivan about America. Ivan told Alfred about Russia. His Russia.

The scarf he sometimes wore, its absence always filled by high collared shirts, was left home when Ivan went out to work, lest it get sullied further still. For stained into the fabric, faded somewhat but visible to anyone who looked close enough, was Ivan’s own blood. Near-fatal gashes to the throat had been his price for escape from the land he had not wanted to leave, as he fought for the safety of himself and his sisters and their personal treasures, knowing some were irreplaceable memories of home and others were their only financial means of starting over.

They kept their promise to each other, when Alfred left, to keep in touch. They did not keep their promise to each other, when Alfred left, to keep calm.

Alfred could barely drag his gaze up from the tops of his shoes, up, up, up Ivan’s towering figure to meet those mournful eyes. He could feel Ivan’s eyes burning holes into his head, and only when the expectant scrutiny became too much did Alfred look up. The final swing of a hammer smashed against his heart, the spider web of cracks bursting into a shower of broken pieces. Such profound aching Alfred had only seen Ivan wear his first night with him, though this grief was of a different sort. Ivan set a heavy hand on Alfred’s shoulder, and perhaps Alfred was imagining it, but the gesture and firm grasp felt like Ivan’s attempt to anchor him there, to keep some part of his life meant to be transient rooted in his faux home away from home.

Alfred’s hand rested atop Ivan’s. “Thanks,” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “Remember…you promised to keep in touch.”

Ivan nodded. “I shall.” He paused. “Will you ever come back to Paris?”

“I’ll try.” It was all he could say.

Ivan seemed to understand. But understanding granted no luxury of ease.

Two souls from two different lands crossed paths in a country not their own. One soul left. The other’s land continued to transform.

0o0o0

 _Twilight falls on the Russian Empire, and her people must flee what lurks in the coming night_.

His readers appreciated the metaphors.

_When speaking of the White Russian emigres, the many facets of their experiences grow almost too numerous to comprehend. Except we know it is within the human capacity to endure, because we have thousands upon thousands of examples of such endurance in these uprooted souls._

Call it what it is.

_For though the fundamental struggles of this revolution’s turbulence remains universal among the Russian people, each individual’s story is unique, and no two journeys trace the same path across the maps of Russia and the globe. It is a common trait among them that all matter of choice was seized from them- it was their choice or their lives. But from there, the threads of human experience diverge. Perhaps most encapsulating of this unifying spirit is the communion of the emigres under the stars with artistic expression. They live through dance and music, the tunes of the heart displaced beyond its sanctum. Their joy highlights their suffering; their suffering strengthens their joy in what they have._

Alfred was heralded as a hero upon the release of his debut article on the Russian emigres in Paris; yes, debut, for others followed by popular demand. Arthur offered a begrudging clap on the back; from the stoic editor, he might as well have hoisted Alfred onto his shoulders and paraded him through the office.

_There is a revelry to their mourning, a lively defiance to their solemn eulogy celebrating the continuation of life amidst the death of life as they know it. They face the fate handed to them and accept it without ever succumbing to it, saying with every song and dance and trinket from home that they will remember and will triumph._

Alfred had taken enough notes of Russian Paris, had conducted enough interviews to last several articles, including three frontpage ones. It pleased him to see one of his articles featuring Ivan was among them, where he referred only to him as _I.B._

And his chest felt an icy relief that he did so when, in 1930, White Army General Kutyopov was snatched and never heard from again.

Even when he continued to get letters from Ivan, violent pangs would shoot through his stomach, force Alfred to double over, as he imagined what might have happened if Ivan’s identity had been released, if yet another white emigre would join General Kutyopov.

 _I.B. asked me, ‘Why do our greatest joys provoke the most potent hurt? Why must what we love and dare to hold so close come with such barbs? Do all precious, beautiful things worth treasuring in the heart bare the same thorns to pierce us with?’ And he answered his own question with a resounding ‘Yes. Yes, they must, for the fire they set before us that we walk through is proof of their worth. I have suffered for my home as I suffer now, and know more than ever no other land besides Russia could be more dear to me_.

They kept writing to each other, all those years. Alfred liked to pretend the tone with which Ivan might speak his letters was cordial, that he might have found some peace in the routine of Paris. That maybe time could heal all wounds. If he did not look at himself, Alfred could fool himself for a bit. What started out as delight at the public’s enthusiasm for his stories gradually dissolved to a twisted kind of bitterness, a cynicism he did not know he was capable of. Who were these people to consume the suffering of others as disposable entertainment? Anger flared up within Alfred every time he saw a paper bearing an article about the emigres tossed aside in the trash, stepped on, left forsaken on a table.

Ivan was right. It was perhaps the hardest blow of all, to decide Ivan had been right, that people did not care.

Alfred tried not to let it show in his letters to Ivan, to try and keep up the optimistic front Ivan had scoffed at. And though it was hard to tell from mere letters, Alfred thought perhaps Ivan appreciated it. He asked more and more about America, about his work, about the articles, with every passing correspondence. Alfred answered, and politely asked how Ivan’s life was, how Paris was, how the Russian community was. Once and only once Ivan accused him of still seeking material for his articles. Alfred’s hurt must have been palpable in his reply, because from then on Ivan answered all his questions in earnest and never raised such an accusation again.

Then news of General Kutyopov’s kidnapping reached Alfred, well after rattling the entire émigré community in Paris. Ivan’s letters to Alfred became shorter, Alfred’s letters to him became more frequent, failing to mask his concern.

At last, Alfred received the shortest letter yet from Ivan.

_Traveling._

_You can finally meet my sisters_.

Alfred composed a final passage.

_We carry our homes within, even as its walls crumble and rise anew. And though the wind smells of different scents, the voices call in different tongues, the road beneath our feet is alien, an indispensable eternal shard of home lives not without but within. Time can heal much, but sometimes it is to elsewhere we must turn to try- not necessarily succeed, but try- to tame that longing with so much to long for._

_The Russian language has a word for emotions of such profundity it changes the soul to acknowledge. Of particular relevance is the existence of a word that, according to I.B., describes an ache as deep as the soul, as restless as the wind, as untamable and implacable as the raging tides. It describes the child trapped in a world speaking a completely different language, unable to communicate frustration or love. It describes the swell of a lover’s heart as they hide in a luggage carrier with their entire world held in a single briefcase and their beloved’s warm palm._

_It describes the sense of mingled emptiness and indignation characteristic of fleeing from what you love most in this world. This Russian word is “toska” and it lives on in even the most displaced Russian soul._

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Wow okay. So. This took longer to write than the avatalia fic that was 30 pages. Time to breathe.
> 
> This fic is in part the product of me listening to “Stay, I Pray You” and “Land of Yesterday,” songs from the Broadway soundtrack of Anastasia. Both have very different moods and tones to the same overall event of leaving Russia during the revolution.; through those very polarizing differences, I also think there’s something very similar that unites them, beyond the fact that they exist because the characters had to flee their homeland. They’re proof of life and acknowledging what they are faced with. Even in the upbeat “Land of Yesterday” with fast-paced folk music there is still in the deep recesses of its meaning a mourning for their faraway home. And in “Stay, I Pray You” it is officially called a farewell prayer to Russia, and there is a sad joy as the characters recall all they love about it: “let me have a moment / let me say goodbye / to bridge and river / forest and waterfall / orchard, sea and sky / harsh and sweet and bitter to leave it all / I’ll bless my homeland til I die.”
> 
> And another driving force behind this fic was the idea of toska, a word that cannot be fully translated from Russian that perfectly exemplifies the capacity of the Russian soul to experience the full spectrum of human emotion, particularly in this case a sense of longing. It goes to show how just one state of being can actually be broken down into an infinite range of feelings such as this, and surely this could be felt when people- in this fic- such as Ivan suddenly do not have the Russia they knew to call home anymore because it is gone and so are they. So, what do they have to long for? Certainly the old Russia, certainly to feel at home once again; but after the revolution, when it became so certain the Whites would not oust the Reds, such wants were futile, so what was there left to want for?
> 
> Rue Daru, rue de la Neva, and rue Pierre-le-Grand were indeed the main holy trinity of Russian émigré communities in Paris, and it became a sort of island of Russian existence. There could be found former noblemen, princesses, army generals, and so on, now working as doormen, cab drivers, maids, teachers, and so forth. They preserved the culture of the Russia they knew, brought it with them, but wanted always to bring it back to the Russian land. A particularly popular place of employment included Parisian car factories; this industry was very hostile to trade unions that the Bolsheviks would support. Their desire for their homeland manifested into a loathing of anything related to communism.
> 
> The 1930 kidnapping of the White Army General Kutyopov was then followed by the 1937 disappearance of General Miller, the replacement of Kutyopov. Hence why Ivan wanted to leave after that and didn’t want his sisters too involved in the interviews, for all their safety. Indeed, around this time many Paris Russians would head further west to America.  
> The Seine and Neva are rivers in France and Russia respectively.
> 
> The song Ivan sings is Shine, Shine, My Star, created by composter Peter Bulakhov and poet Vladimir Chuevsky in the mid-19th century. Vladimir Sabinin would then set this song to a patriotic arrangement, fueling its popularity as a patriotic romance song popular during WWI.  
> White Russian came to be a term for anyone opposing the Red Bolsheviks, not necessarily just those who supported the tsardom.
> 
> Prevalent sources:  
> http:// www . pushkinhouse . org/events/2014/6/25/vanora-bennett-russian-emigre-paris  
> http:// todiscoverrussia . com/old-russian-songs-of-the-early-20th-century/  
> https:// advokatdyavola . wordpress . com/2012/05/07/an-elegy-for-passion/
> 
> Any lingering mistakes are mine and will be happily corrected. Thank you so much again to MapleTreeway for helping me, and my beta reader, redwingto. I am so glad for taking her up on their kind offers to look this over, as the corrections were a massive help. Thank you!!! And thank you to all readers for your time and for reading this. I hope you enjoyed! Any feedback is wonderfully appreciated!


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